Help...--> I have just bought an LG 4163B, I also have a NEC 3500A, and I noticed that when I burn a DVD with the LG and I use Nero CD Speed to do a transfer test, the transfer test starts at 4.2x speed and takes 7.5 minutes, but when I test the same DVD with the Nec 3500A the transfer test starts at 6.5x and takes 5 minutes to complete the test. And sometime the test results are very different. Why does LG 4163B starts at a slower speed and take longer for the same DVD? Is that good or bad and which results are more reliable?

Hi there I've got 2 LG4163B's & get slightly different results with these, they're minimal however(& probably due to temp/ &/ or your computer doing stuff in the background) In the UK the power from the national grid varies at different times of the day, this is deliberate in order to meet demand. (Therefore voltage will rise & fall for example from 240v to 220v) This has almost no affect visually unless making some sort of performance test.

In answer to why you get such a variant between your drives. The LG is set to read at 4-10 speed. Whereas the NEC is set for 6-12 speed. The reason why there's a difference has to do with error correction. As drives get faster at writing so the possibillity of error's increase, but because when reading these same drives have erros correction this should be negligible.

LG's read speed is playing safe unlike NEC( & PLEXTOR) Try a pressed disc & you should find both drives read as high as 6-16 for both drives.

PS: I'm using the latest firmware, but future firmware may improve read speed. Only time will tell.

My LG 4163B has the latest firmware to date A104 and my NEC3500A has Mad DOG 2.FD firmware. But as an example, i burn a DVD with the LG burner, then i test Transfer rate with the LG, i get a perfect curve starting at 4.2x, whereas if i take the same exact DVD and i put it in my NEC 3500A Mad Dog Burner and do the same test it starts at 6.2x but sometimes at the end of the test on the NEC i get a not so perfect curve some sharp drops? So now is the DVD burn quality/tranfer rate good as per the LG curve or Bad as per the NEC curve?

The answer to quality/transfer rate lies not only in the drives but also in the media. One ( NEC ) puts emhasis on performance the other ( LG ) on quality.ie NEC speed 10/10 quality 9/10 LG speed 9/10 quality 10/10 Both drives are very good but the NEC is highlighting errors as the error correction struggle's with the speed, whereas the LG's slower speed gives the error correction more time hence the illusion of less or even no errors (these are so minor that when playing a disc no at 1x no visable affect ) To complicate things different drives favour different media although this becomes less with firmware updates. Best to test quality in the same machine. Although changing media could result in less differences between the two graph's. ( N.B. Nero CD Speed's primary function is to measure speed, so don't read to much into these graph's when trying to gauge quality.) I get similar result's comparing my LG4163b with my PLEXTOR 716a when using Nero. When using Plextool's write quality test the results are often identical.